Chapter Twenty-
For the next three days, Violet falls into an easy and beloved routine.
She wakes in her inventing room, hurries to breakfast with Elsie and the others, and attends her classes with her usual disinterest and criticism. Time passes slowly, lectures bleeding into one another, her only respite in the long notes she passes between friends plotting their course for the evening.
It is the evenings, after all, that make the long hours worth enduring.
Dana and Elsie accompany her on long walks throughout the city as the sun sinks and burns itself out. They comb back alleys and dumpsters and construction sites, Violet's bag growing heavy with scrounged inventing supplies. Dana snaps odd pictures of her friends and the city on a beat-up looking camera while Elsie chatters about her newest fabric experiments, endless assignments, and their coming graduation.
They wear themselves out until the sun sets, and return to Eliade just before curfew.
With that, they head to the basement theatre and into the chaos of pre-production planning. Violet abandons her privacy in favor of much-needed help, allowing Dana and Elsie into her inventing room with strict rules for secrecy.
Elsie had taken one look around the cluttered space and instantly recognized the photobooth pictures, glancing back to Violet with a smug, dirty grin. "Followed my directions to the photobooth, I see."
Flustered, Violet had waved her off, brushing past to her rickety desk, "We're not here for you to gawk, Elsie, I just need to grab my hand drill and we can-"
Dana had turned from where she had been examining the string lights cluttering the high tower to join Elsie, teasing, "Oh, so steamy, Violet. Who knew Olaf could kiss like that, huh?"
"Me." She had challenged through a grin, grabbing her tools from the mess of the table and handing them to the amused, fascinated girls. "Now help me get this done."
They spend their few remaining hours of freedom in various positions around the theatre, helping Violet link long coils of bicycle chain together and measuring the growth. Dana holds her ladder as Violet drills a rusty metal sign in place between two lights bigger than her head. Elsie holds a greasy oil can with politely subdued disgust.
With each passing day there is a growing sparkle and electricity to the air, the sort of anticipatory instinct similar to the moments before a fierce thunderstorm. Nero reminds them of the upcoming, mandatory play at every available moment. He mentions it during morning announcements, on the intercom between classes, and even forces their teachers to offer extra credit despite the compulsory attendance.
Three days pass in a trial of endurance, hard work, and skill.
She finishes her invention on Thursday evening, the night before the play.
Violet sits on the latticed edge of the catwalk, her feet dangling between the handrail beams. Far below her sit the plush velvet audience chairs, empty, waiting. She put the finishing touch on her invention minutes ago, her hands now black with drying smears of oil, a handful of dirty rags stuffed into her satchel.
Having finished, exhausted and confident about her job well done, she had dropped to the floor of the catwalk, dangled her feet over the edge, and simply watched the Troupe traverse the theatre with a weary, hardwon sort of affection.
Fernald and the bald man are pacing the stage, examining the marking tape stuck to the floor and muttering. The white-faced women stand before the steep stairwell leading up into Eliade, large clipboards in their hands, tasked with examining doorways and windows and viable exits to check off a numbered list. The individual of indeterminate gender stands upstage, dimmed in shadow, examining a numbered list of costumes hanging on a rolling rack.
Violet watches as they work, hung like a benevolent moon amongst her twinkling hoard of stage lights, of stars.
Olaf enters swiftly from stage right, footsteps sharp. His clothes are noticeably rumpled as if he has had to remove them several times already, swapping costumes and accessories. He stops near centerstage and examines the work of his Troupe. There is a momentary pause, counting heads, where Olaf glances towards her and immediately away, blinking against the temporary blind spots swimming in his gaze, she's sure, from the great shine of lights that halo the catwalk.
"Olaf," She calls. He squints to the floor, rubs his eyes. "I finished my invention. Come see."
"If I can make it there." He grumbles. "Who made these things so bright? Someone check the Dimmer Room."
Still wincing, he makes his way to the audience floor and towards the back of the theatre where the sound booth conceals a tall ladder rising skyward and its netting of connected walkways. He flies up the ladder with practiced ease and heads straight towards her on steady legs, indifferent to the deep, open drop below.
"Not scared to fall, huh?" She calls, impressed and nervous.
Olaf shakes his head, sparing a glance to the long rows of seats below, shrunk with distance. "I've strutted plenty of catwalks in my time, my dear. This one is hardly the tallest."
He shuffles beside her and sits, dangles his own legs to the air. "But I've been up here plenty of times. In fact," He snakes an arm around her shoulders, draws her close. Violet leans into him, her cheek against his chest. "The first time we met on that stage, Fernald had just left because he lost our little game of seeing who could spit the farthest."
"Eew." Violet mumbles, pulling away. She glances critically at the rails holding them in place, wipes her hands on her skirt. "You spat from all the way up here?"
"Yes." Olaf insists. "And I won."
Violet hums. "Remind me to clean this spot before the show."
He shrugs, crosses his legs. "If you'd like. Now tell me about this invention of yours."
Violet reaches into her satchel, which hangs knotted around a handrail, withdrawing two plums. She stands carefully, reaching for the long loop of bike chain. Olaf's hand immediately slides up the back of her leg and beneath her skirt, squeezing her backside.
When she glares down at him, he flashes her a guiltless grin.
"Leave me alone, you cad." She snips, shimmying her skirt, yet his hand remains where it is.
Olaf shakes his head. "I'm fully capable of admiring you and your invention at once, Miss Baudelaire. Get to it."
Violet sighs in duel exasperation and affection and turns away. She grips a spot on the chain right above her head and rattles it. The wave travels the whole length of the theatre to its ending above the stage where the chain loops around a mesh of cogs from an old grandfather clock. Lengths of rubber-coated copper wire coil through the cogs and wrap around the lights hanging above the stage, the same ones that had tormented her so early into her residency at Eliade.
"So this-" Violet begins, rattling the chain yet again. "Is several bike chains linked together. Several. To get it to go this far. I can move it in rotation on these here." She taps a gleaming cog above her head, the engraving so worn she cannot tell its make or model, yet the edges of it are still barbed and sharp as ever. "And the whole pulley hangs on these wires here-" She taps the wire closest to her where it is threaded through the cog and points to where it winds around the closest light above their heads. "And then I welded the wires together so they fused, on both ends. I know it's pretty heavy duty for what you need but I wanted to be sure it would work."
Olaf releases his grip on her backside to stand. He grabs a length of bike chain and pushes it away so it glides in a smooth rotation. "Looks perfect. Have you got a demonstration?"
"Of course." Violet says. From the front pocket of her satchel, she withdraws a large silk handkerchief, pale pink and dotted with oil. "Elsie gave me this to test it out with fruit. We've got a larger sling for your prop but it's up in my inventing attic. Watch."
She places the plums inside the handkerchief and threads two corners between the rivulets on the bike chain, knotting the ends. With a grunt and a shove, she sends them zipping across the theatre.
"They'll hit that street sign I've placed there." Violet points to the end of the track where she has bolted an old yellow sign into place amongst the glow of the lights, the punched letters stripped of most paint yet still easily reading: SLAUGHTERHOUSE, followed by a downward arrow pointing to the stage.
"Where did you get that?" Olaf asks, disgusted yet amused.
"Watch." Violet insists, pointing as the pair of plums speed across the theatre and finally hit the sign with a wet smack. The momentum sends them tipping out of the silk sling and dropping to the stage, hitting the black taped X with precision and slight mess.
"Ah. And that's why my stage is sticky." Olaf murmurs.
"You're lucky it wasn't a watermelon again." Violet grins. "That one made a mess."
Olaf hums, considers her out of the corner of his eye. There is a question there, some deeper suspicion. "Tell me, at least, that you didn't loot a slaughterhouse."
Violet shakes her head. "No. Just the dumpster behind the slaughterhouse that's being renovated. See the things I do for you?"
Olaf grins. His hand brushes, calm and familiar, from her backside up the curve of her spine to rest hot between her shoulder blades. "Climb into a slaughterhouse dumpster? Create a marvelous, critical invention? Bear witness and collaborator to my many schemes and plots?"
"Those too." She agrees.
They stand in silence for several moments, watching the Troupe recover from the unexpected slap of fruit to the stage and return to their duties.
"Are you nervous?" Violet asks, bending to a persistent curiosity.
"No." Olaf answers, as if he has been asked the same question many times before. "I'm impatient. Excited, almost. No, the play isn't…" He sighs, scowls down to the seats. "Violet, do you remember what I said this play would be about? On our very first date?"
She hums, considering. "You were pretty vague. I remember you mentioned manipulation by superiors but not much else. My memory of that night is cluttered by our other activities."
"Wicked girl." Olaf says fondly, reaching out to tuck her against his side. Violet wraps her arms around him and closes her eyes briefly, relaxing. Her body seems to melt, as if the proximity to Olaf had soothed her in a way unique to only him.
"If you had bothered to remember my words and not, perhaps, just my tongue, then you may remember I also mentioned other themes. Childhood trauma. Revenge. A feeling of doom one can never avoid. Sound familiar?"
"Sure." Violet mutters, too pleased at being against him and weary from long nights of inventing to ponder his words.
"Violet." He runs a protective hand over the crown of her head. "This play is a very thinly veiled insult to all of VFD. That's what I couldn't tell you before. It will make many people angry, volunteers and villains alike. Have you seen the Quagmires lately?"
Violet sighs, mood souring. "No. I haven't seen them since before the fire at the Cathedral. They haven't attended any sermons or classes or meals, and their bedrooms are always empty. I'm worried about them."
"They've most likely been inducted by Snicket. Or nearly. I bet they show up on his heels tomorrow night. At least for the duration of the play, do not interact with them. And-" Olaf squeezes her close to his chest, kisses the top of her head. In a quiet, small voice, as if confessing a terrible secret, he says, "Just trust me."
"I do, of course." She says, just as quiet and serious.
"I know you do. I need to-" Before he can say another word, two happy girls tumble down the last few stairs and into the theatre, nearly bumping into the white faced women. Elsie spots them immediately, waving to the catwalk.
"Violet!" She calls, "We've got more fruit to drop!"
Dana stands beside her holding several grocery bags, at least one containing a large watermelon.
"Oh no." Violet mutters, casting Olaf an apologetic look. "I don't want to mess anything up by-"
"You've already got the plums to clean up, why stop there? It's time for us to get going anyway. The longer we stay, the worse we'll do tomorrow. Have fun with your friends. Smash some fruit." He takes her face in his hands, kisses her roughly, and pulls away with a smack. "I'll drive myself crazy if I stay a moment longer."
"Okay." Violet murmurs. Her hands form rings around his wrists as she eyes the tension in his face. Despite his rejection of nerves, she can still see the edgy, high-strung tick to his movements. "Don't worry. It'll be over soon."
"You're right." He says, kissing her forehead once, twice, before leading the way off the catwalk. Violet follows easily, having grown familiar with each turn and every rung down.
Dana and Elsie meet them at the main aisle bisecting the first row of seats. They glance to Olaf warily, as if unsure how to address him.
"Have fun dropping your fruits, ladies." Olaf says, nodding to the bags in their hands. "I'm off to spend the rest of my evening blissfully alone, trying not to think of everything I have left to do.
"Will do." Elsie says. "We'll clean up our mess."
Dana nods, seconding the promise.
"Of course. Goodnight, ladies." He casts Violet an amused, devoted look. "Goodnight, Miss Baudelaire.
"Goodnight." They return in unison.
Dana and Elsie stuff heavy fruit into her arms, already hurrying towards the ladder. Violet watches Olaf retreat to the long stairwell, worried.
She senses a greater secrecy in him deeper than hindered nerves.
Olaf takes to the stairs, back hunched, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Violet remembers his repetitive plea for trust and knows, above all else, that her devotion to him remains resolute and unwavering.
She trusts him.
It will have to be enough.
They are laughing when Fernald throws open the dressing room door.
Tucked amongst piles of props and long racks of costumes and small tables covered in snacks, Violet sits in the stuffy room before a glowing, wall-length vanity mirror. She is curled in on herself, shaking, face nearly pressed to her knees, shrieking with shocked, riotous laughter. Beside her, Olaf crouches at her feet, hands shaking the arms of the chair. He moves jerkily, as if trying to catch a glimpse of her face through the long curtain of her hair.
"Again!" Olaf demands through his cackling. "Let me see it again!"
Their laughter is so impassioned that they fail to observe the moment Fernald enters the private dressing room. They take no notice of the stricken, panicked look to his face until he steps inside, hooks outstretched as if to console, and asks, "Is she alright?"
Still grinning, Olaf rises and mutters, "Yes. Sort of."
Violet flips her hair back, sitting straight, and looks into the mirror again, taking in her face painted white, her lips pursed and red, her three sets of pointy eyebrows, and matching mustache. She opens her mouth to speak and the gummy false insert of several yellowed, crooked teeth bounces off her knees and clatters to the floor.
"Fernald." Violet forces through sputtering, embarrassed giggling. "I can explain. We-"
Olaf grabs her by the face, his fingers pressing against her cheeks, squishing them forward until her lips bunch. "Under the guise of disguise training, I bet our little orphan that she couldn't mimic the makeup of our lovely white-faced women. What happened after that is nothing short of a tragedy."
Violet slaps him away, rebukes, "You insisted the eyebrows were off. How was I supposed to see what I was doing wrong if I couldn't compare them?"
"Ah, logic." Olaf says, rolling his eyes. He casts a hand through the air as if waving the notion away. "Who needs it?"
"And the, uh, mustache?" Fernald asks. "The teeth?"
"Just for fun." Violet beams at him, utterly amused. "What, you don't like them?"
"Who would?" Olaf offers.
Violet grabs the thin makeup brush she had used to apply her numerous eyebrows and brandishes it at him, warning, "You're next, you fiend."
"Oh, slay me, you little monster." Olaf snickers, steps away.
Violet glares at him, hoping it is enhanced by her eyebrows, and swivels in her chair. Before she can retort or throw the brush, Fernald speaks with the hurried rush of someone desperately in need of expelling their bad news.
"Lemony Snicket is here." He forces on a tight exhale. "He's got a kid with him I don't recognize. A boy. And the Quagmire triplets. And Larry."
"Larry?" Olaf repeats, face contorted in nearly offended confusion. "Why would he bring Larry?"
A flash of memory accompanies the name. Violet remembers the man dressed in a white doctor's coat, his voice even and calm as he discussed Duncan's expulsion.
"I don't know." Fernald rubs his hooks together anxiously. The glow of the mirror highlights the nervous sweat streaking his brow. "But they keep walking around the building. Hanging out in the alley. Like they're looking for something. I figured I should tell you."
Olaf hums, frowning at the floor. Violet watches the amusement fade from his face, replaced with mounting nervous tension.
"Do you think they're going to try to take Violet?" Fernald asks. His voice is quiet in the small room, so soft he can barely be heard over the electric buzz of the bulbs.
"Hopefully. You think he'd want her like this?" Olaf taps the base of her chair with his toe, still attempting to make her laugh even as his greatest enemy lurks outside.
"Fun's over." Violet mutters, reaching for the closest rag to wipe her face. The makeup smears in great drags, eyebrows blurring across her forehead. She can feel Olaf's eyes on her face, watching, plotting.
"Sorry." Fernald mutters, backing away towards the door. "Just wanted you to be aware."
"Don't be." Violet says, attempting to scrub her mustache away. "We've got less than an hour before showtime anyway. I shouldn't be distracting the star."
Olaf rolls his eyes at her in the mirror. Fernald casts them one last strained smile before shutting the door and slinking away.
Several minutes of silence follow the man's exit as Violet scrubs the last traces of makeup from her skin and Olaf broods, his eyes distant and distracted. Once she is sure that her face is clean, she asks, "Why does Fernald think Snicket is going to steal me?"
"Another orphan to complete his collection? A deal brokered with the Quagmires for their compliance?" Olaf guesses, shrugging. "Like I've said, I cannot begin to understand him. I have anticipated the possibility that he might come after you. But I won't let him get the chance."
That being said, he walks over to a small table low to the ground and littered with highlighted, tattered scripts. From its surface he grabs a large circular object draped in thick black fabric. He turns carefully, crosses the room. The glass is cool and heavy against her thighs as Olaf sets it in her lap. He pulls the cloth away with a steady, slow hand.
Near the bottom of the domed terrarium, Violet spots layers of pebbles, sand, and silt, all covered with a film of withering detritus and bright bundles of moss. Numerous mushrooms sprout in close clusters from the soil, their grey bodies several inches in length and speckled with black dots like freckles. The caps swell towards the vaulted top of the glass, nearly as large as her palm. Papery gills hang beneath the caps, pale as bone.
A prickle of dreaded recollection hovers at the back of her mind.
"These are-" She mutters, gazing fearfully into the glass, unable to look him in the face. "They were- were in your study."
"You're right." Olaf says smoothly. She can feel his heavy gaze on her face, studying her every reaction. Testing her. "You noticed they were gone, didn't you? Last time?"
"I noticed something was different." Violet admits. Her hands close around the glass, holding it in place. "But I couldn't put my finger on it. Until now."
Her mind churns with violent images too putrid to ponder. Her heart races, sick and aching on its hook of bone. Violet stares from Olaf to the terrarium and feels her face go pale in one vast flush.
"Olaf." She begins, hating the horrified tremor in her voice. "These are those mushrooms, aren't they? The ones my parents tried to protect me from? The poisonous ones?"
He watches her for a moment longer than necessary. When he answers, he is measured and calculated. "Do you trust me?"
"Of course." Violet answers. "But-"
"Do you trust me, Violet?" He asks again, running his hands soothingly over hers. They are cold and clammy, proof of the nerves he had hidden from her the previous night.
A loud knock cracks against the door. Violet flinches, sending the mushrooms swaying.
"Twenty minutes!" The white-faced women call.
"I do. You know I do. But I don't understand why-" She stops, frustrated, confused. "I have friends in the audience."
"Violet." Olaf says. "I need you to take this to the catwalk. You're going to use that marvelous, genius invention of yours to send it to the stage for me. Remember your cue?"
"Yes. The poem. All the evil in the world, the wickedness and sin, can never sink your soul unless you let it in."
"Good." Olaf says, nodding. "Everything will be okay. Leave it to me, little sneak. Please. Trust me."
"Okay." She says, a fearful, teary catch to her voice. Although her throat constricts painfully and her stomach knots into an anxious coil, she kisses Olaf with all the fervor she can muster. She hates how even now his hands coax warmth into her body, shining sunlight onto the dark, wretched parts of her mind.
His mouth tastes of horseradish.
This fact alone is enough to send tears spilling down her cheeks.
"I can't." Violet says, face painfully hot. She imagines it clearly- her friends in the audience, having arrived early to claim front row in support, receiving the first dusting of the poisonous spores.
"Don't cry." Olaf says, kissing her nose, her cheeks, swiping his thumbs beneath her eyes. "You can do it. You can, Violet. For me. For us."
Another knock sounds at the door, yet she barely hears it, too absorbed the resolute, tender gaze of the man before her. She kisses him once more, quick, as if afraid he'll burn her, and leaps from her seat.
"You can do it." Olaf murmurs. "Good luck."
"Good luck." Violet repeats, gesturing ambiguously towards the stage.
She wipes her face against her sleeve, attempting composure, takes one last look at Olaf, (who stands wounded and troubled, gazing at her as if worried she will betray him-) and hurries out of the dressing room.
By the time she crosses the labyrinth of back halls to the sound booth and scales its ladder to stand on the farthest edge of the catwalk, the room has settled and the lights have dimmed. From her perch, she cannot make out individuals among the crowd. One bowl-shaped hat reveals another, and several more after. She cannot tell the difference between one student and the next, all wearing their Eliade uniforms. No shock of red hair blights the audience, which is suspiciously absent of Carmelita's shrill complaints.
At Violet's distance, she cannot pick volunteer from villain.
The anonymity doesn't help her trembling hands or the sniffling catch of her breath. She stands in the catwalk, prepares the large sling so it hangs like a pale ghost from the bike chain.
A ripple of movement passes across the large drawn curtains, causing a swell of excited murmuring from the audience. With a resounding switch, a spotlight shines to the empty stage, appears suddenly as a sunray scraped past thunderclouds.
Nero saunters towards it from the right wing. He carries a microphone in his fist, the long cord trailing behind him like shadow. The unrelenting glow of the spotlight does him no favors. It amplifies the ruddy tinge to his face, casts his shadow lumpy and awkward up the curtain. He dresses in an ill-fitting suit, green as vomit, and spotted with stains.
Seeing him, even after so many months, evokes raging disgust in Violet. Her stomach flips in warning. She sits at the edge of the catwalk, curled around the terrarium.
Grinning nastily, as if he knows exactly what it will do, Nero taps the microphone. A metallic squeal rents the air. Through her wince, Violet sees the audience cringe, duck away.
"Students!" Nero barks before the ringing is truly done. "This is the night you've been waiting for all year! Besides, of course, my each and every violin recital which is undoubtedly the best you'll ever hear! But tonight-" He pauses dramatically, scans the crowd with his red-rimmed, watery eyes. "You'll enjoy a treat of another sort. Orphans, faculty, and orphaned faculty. Count Olaf and his Troupe present The Dire Deity!"
The crowd claps and cheers as Nero turns away. The lights dim and blink awake to the curtain being pulled.
Before a background of fluffy clouds and open sky, the two white-faced women have taken to centerstage as angels. They wear flowing white gowns, halos of tinsel, and two pairs of large, white wings apice. Drawn onto their faces are several eyeballs, each one boasting full eyelashes and glitter to the iris.
Without preamble or fuss, the show begins.
"There once was a man with extraordinary talent!" cries an angel.
"And charm! And looks!" cries the other.
Count Olaf marches to the stage as the backdrop shifts behind him into a village with clay homes and a winding main street that disappears into its painted horizon. He is dressed in pale linen trousers with a flowing shirt to match. Above that he wears a velvet robe, golden, and heavily embroidered with intricate stitchings, the hem drooping to brush his calves as he walks.
Seeing Olaf atop the stage, finally performing his beloved show, has unexpected pride blossoming in Violet's chest. Her hands itch against the cool glass terrarium, wanting to touch him, to reach out and claim him for herself if only for a moment.
He's mine, she thinks, feeling small and extraordinarily lucky despite the biological weapon in her lap.
An angel continues, "He was a powerful man, easily gaining respect and admiration from those around him."
Fernald enters from stage left dressed in dark, tattered robes and a pair of fake hands to cover his hooks. He walks past the Count with a wave and says cheerfully, "Oh! My neighbor! I respect and admire you!"
"Thank you." Olaf purrs, bowing as he passes.
"But this man wasn't just a man…" narrates an angel. "No. He was also God!"
"God?" gasps the other. "Which one?"
"Exactly! He's all of them, of course. Every myth, legend, deity, and folktale wrapped into one!" An angel gestures to Olaf, who walks slowly through the village as if surveying his own land.
"Women fall before him! Strangers beg for favors!"
Dressed in a pale floral dress, the individual of indeterminate gender rushes to the stage and into Olaf's arms, muttering, "Oh, handsome man. You're the one performing miracles around here. Let me follow in your shadow so that I might someday share your bed."
"If you're lucky." Olaf boasts, pushing them onto their feet.
Violet laughs softly to herself, muttering to the empty air, "Agreed."
Several minutes pass as Fernald, the bald man, and the individual of indeterminate gender appear and disappear in loops of demands and costumes. Olaf uses his godly powers to summon water, to bless crops, to heal livestock, to seek stockpiles of long-buried gold. He performs these miracles with growing disinterest as the people around him ask for more and do not linger in his company.
"This man bends reality before him, makes it dance and shiver and change," says an angel, once Olaf is again left alone. He crosses his arms, glares at the ground. "He answers to no one, holds no responsibility for his gifts. Yet, over time, he continues to grow dissatisfied."
"It gets awfully lonely performing miracles for only a small moment of glory." Olaf says. "What's a god without devoted, mindless, spineless pawns? Nothing! I'm nothing without validation!"
More villagers come and go. With each visit, Olaf grows more noticeably bitter.
"This god-man began offering a catch to his good deeds." the angels explain. "He no longer wanted to share his knowledge and power just for the sake of those around him. He wanted more. He wanted devotion."
"Come and follow me," Olaf says, walking in circles throughout the village as more people trail behind him, dummies and mannequins in the arms of his followers. "And I will give you what you need."
The disciples follow Olaf as the background ripples, revealing a shifting sun and moon in fast cycles.
"Over time he drew a small crowd, all noble and good people who wished to share their knowledge and talents with one another. Soon, the man didn't have to force them into devotion." Both angels pluck the halos from their heads and shrug out of their wings, setting them to the stage. "They volunteered."
The two women join the march for several moments. A noticeable whisper gusts through the crowd like wind through wheat, each head bending to brush against its neighbor in hushed conversation. Violet looks to Olaf who leads his line with his head held high, his golden robe shimmering.
"But, as could be expected, this devotion left him bored. He wanted more. A wicked idea grew in his mind." says a white-faced woman to the crowd, her mouth covered as if sharing a horrible secret.
Olaf stops in his tracks, turns to address his disciples under the warm glow of midday sun. He declares, "I've had an idea."
"Oh wonderful!" Fernald cries.
"You must invest in me your multitudes of enormous fortunes. We can travel farther, explore the world, induct more like-minded, noble prudes like us!" Olaf says. Before him, the entire crowd of disciples nods in diminutive acceptance.
"And so they do," says a white-faced woman. "But it takes little time for the man to demand even more."
Olaf takes a few steps and pauses. He turns to his volunteers with a wicked grin on his face. "It has come to my attention that we do not have any young volunteers among us. Without them you lot will slowly die and I'll be left alone. It's time to induct children! We'll train them to read and practice individual skills and think for themselves but only about subjects approved by me!"
He bald man asks, "How would we get young children?"
"We'll steal them from their beds if they seem promising! Take them in the middle of the night! And, if they don't comply-" Olaf shakes his head, grimacing. "We'll murder their parents with poison darts. We'll ruin their whole lives."
Another harsh whisper races through the audience.
Violet feels the moment someone steps up to the catwalk, feels it in the slight shiver of the metal beneath her. She stands, preparing herself, clutching the terrarium like a precious treasure.
A vague silhouette shifts at the end of her aisle, searching.
Onstage, Fernald mutters, "Well that doesn't sound very noble. But who am I to argue?"
"Exactly!" Olaf shouts.
She knows it is Lemony Snicket before she sees the outline of his bowl-shaped hat, before his face comes into the light, pale and serious, before he crouches beside her and offers his hand to shake as if they are strangers and not hereditary enemies.
"Violet Baudelaire," Snicket says, hushed, calm. His dark eyes find hers and in them she sees a profound, depthless sadness. "It was difficult to tell in the collapsing tunnel but now I can see the resemblance very clearly. You look just like your mother."
Violet keeps silent, her back to the stage against the handrail. She clutches the terrarium close despite her repulsion of it, unwilling to shake his hand.
Several ideas of escape or distraction assault her mind at once, not one of them worth trying. She could scream, interrupting the production and drawing attention to the man blocking her path. Fighting comes to mind, of striking Lemony Snicket like she struck Carmelita, yet the thought of a wild brawl at such a height has her stomach dropping in forewarning.
Snicket withdraws his hand.
Onstage, a track is played of a baby's wail.
"I was-" Snicket begins, hesitates. A pained look flickers across his face like a wince. "Close to your mother. I loved her deeply. Your father was one of my best friends. We grew up together."
"I know." Violet hisses, glaring, jaw set resolutely so it does not tremble. "In VFD. I know."
"You might know the name." Snicket concedes with a nod. "But there is so much about our organization that you do not know. I feel that it's my duty as your parents' friend and colleague to keep you safe. To keep you from getting involved in such villainy and woe."
"Villainy." Violet repeats, shocked, derisive. "As if you wouldn't induct me the second you could."
"Violet." Snicket says, voice stern and aggressive. He seems foreign to bravery, as if having a spine was something he could never stomach. "I know it was you who burnt down the Cathedral. You and Olaf. Do you consider that entirely noble?"
"Anything to stop VFD." She answers reflexively, so torn with fear and rage her hands rattle the terrarium. She glances critically to the audience then back to the man before her. "To stop the organization that stole my family from me. From all of us."
A pinched frown hardens Snicket's voice. "As I said. There is so much you don't know. For instance, the terrarium you have in your hands is full of a deadly fungus known as the Medusoid Mycelium. A handful of spores could kill this entire theatre within the hour." He reaches out, gesturing. Violet eyes his empty grip, seeing his hands lined with callouses and scars. They are the hands of a man who has labored and fought and suffered.
"It's not in your nature to act villainous, Violet. Give me the fungus. Follow me outside. The Quagmires have been so worried about you." His hands flex in the vacant air, pleading. "Trust me."
"I can't trust you." She says, hating the clutch of mushrooms in her arms, hating the wretched guilt and self-loathing his words summon. "I'm not supposed to."
The heel of her boot finds perch on the bottom rung of the handrail. Violet grasps the long sling in her free hand, hoping to keep the terrarium to herself.
A dangerous idea takes root.
She adjusts her grip on the neck of the sling.
Snicket advances towards her slowly, calculative. "You don't have to do this, Violet. You can come with me. It'll be easy and-! Stop!"
Before he can make a move to grab her, Violet hoists herself onto the handrail, secures a foot in the gut of the sling, fastens her grip on the terrarium, and leaps.
There is a moment that seems far too long where she falls, weightless, breathless, the entire audience beneath her. Then she is yanked to a halt, the sling holding her, spinning wildly as she zips across the theatre.
Violet hits the slaughterhouse sign at an angle, hip bashing against the metal, sending shockwaves of sharp, piercing pain through her body. The impact is so rapid and brutal she loses her grip on the terrarium, feels it slip from her hands as easily as smoke.
"No!" Violet cries, lunging. She leaps from the sling, reaching, yet the terrarium falls to the stage in an explosion of shattered glass.
After her fall from the catwalk, dropping to the stage feels instantaneous yet she still lands hard amongst the splintered glass, the sediment, the mushrooms with their torn caps.
A collective gasp swells from the crowd. Elsie's voice finds her from the front row, scared, "Violet?"
Shaking, pained, Violet glances up to the catwalk in time to see Lemony Snicket hurrying away.
"Alas!" Olaf calls, running across the stage to kneel beside her. Dread drains the color from his face. "An angel from heaven!"
His presence soothes her in a visceral way, yet she still feels torn and useless and wrecked enough to whisper frantically, "I'm so sorry, Olaf, Snicket was up there trying to steal me. I'm so, so sorry-"
She stands shakily, Olaf's arms under her, blood pouring in great swells from her knees, dripping stark and red from the palms of her hands. The room tilts beneath her feet. She feels hot and dizzy and slow under the stage lights.
"I'll heal you, angel." He calls, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a small jar. Already, she can hear the front row's inhabitants coughing. He reaches into the jar and withdraws two slivers of horseradish root shaved clean and circular as coins. He places one in her mouth, fingers lingering against her tongue, then in his. Violet bites hers bitterly, the flavor crisp and hot. It soothes an ache in her throat she had barely noticed.
"In fact! I think I know how to heal every one of you." Olaf calls, gesturing to his Troupe and the concerned, fretful audience. "To kill a weed before it takes root. To scourge an ideology that promises nothing but an overwhelming feeling of doom one can never avoid."
He bends at the waist, slipping an arm beneath her knees, and lifts her off her feet. Violet picks a shard of glass from her hands and tosses it to the stage. She slings an arm around his neck, mutters, "Thank you."
The growing cough has spread to the second and third row. Violet can see patrons pull at their collars, rub their throats in confusion.
Olaf lurches towards the right wing and withdraws the long hook used to pull at the ladder of her trapdoor. He swings it through the air, taps at the bundle of metal, and steps aside as the ladder unfurls itself and straightens.
"What are you doing?" Violet hisses, squirming. "You never asked to use that. It's my place, I need it-"
"Hold onto me." Olaf demands, voice soft in her ear.
On either side of the stage, the bald man and Fernald stand with large steel drums at their feet. They nod to Olaf when he checks their positions, bending, preparing.
"Yes, I think the only thing that can be done to purge the world of this selfish, rotten, manipulative organization is to cleanse it once and for all. And do you know how only the best, most committed gods destroy their disappointments?"
Fernald and the bald man yank the plugs from their drums, sending streams of amber liquid pouring to the front of the stage and beyond, seeping into the carpet before the audience.
Olaf raises his hand as if giving a signal, a wicked, ecstatic grin on his face.
The theatre is swamped with the putrid sting of gasoline.
Lemony Snicket heaves himself to the stage, shouts, "No!" but Olaf still smiles, still bows and rises, holding Violet tight in his grip as the audience coughs, fumbles in their seats.
"Holy fire!" He cries.
Reminiscent of the Cathedral of the Alleged Virgin, combustion is instant.
Violet screams as a wave of fire passes between the audience and the stage, obscuring them from view.
Olaf holds her close and leaps up the ladder, scaling it with ease. Clutching his back, she watches as waves of people dive for the exit doors, finding them locked and unmoveable. The Troupe vanishes backstage, drawing the curtains closed which catch fire with alarming rapidity. Lemony Snicket races up the ladder behind them, shouting, as the room fills with smoke black as char.
Horrified, weeping, Violet clings to Olaf, unable to hear her own voice over the roar of the fire and the screaming of the audience and Olaf's rapid breathing.
"Why?" Violet forces through the smoke in her mouth, through her heart's sick struggling. "Why?"
Olaf ignores her, throwing open the trapdoor and barging inside. He drops her to the floor amongst her pile of blankets, hurrying with levelled, practiced movements, as if he had prepared each step several times over.
"I will explain when I can." Olaf says, kicking down the trapdoor as he turns. The velvet chair is heaved into his hands and held high over his head like a victor's prize. Violet remembers him in that chair, sitting, biting his tongue so as not to scare her, his fingers on her hips and his voice tempting in her ear, "You are young and broken. I could eat you whole."
"What are you doing?" Violet demands, dread pitching her voice high as she watches Olaf hurl her chair through the high tower windows. They shatter easily, sending nearly every photo and memento of their relationship into the alley below. Shredded bits of notes and glass fall to the floor, to her desktop, scattered by the new breeze.
Olaf yanks at the pouch strung around his waist. A small ladder with a hooked end rolls free and to the floor. He takes the hooked end and places it at the windowsill, tossing the long ladder to the open air fogged with smoke.
"Come here." Olaf says, bending to take her into his arms again. Violet grasps his neck, weeping, a shrill whine building in the back of her throat. He steps atop her desk, crushing the candle stubs and bits of homework. He sends the beer can full of wilting wildflowers tipping to the floor amidst the glass.
With a harsh bang, Snicket throws open the trapdoor and staggers into the room.
Olaf curses, lurches towards the jagged hole in the open window. A swatch of color catches Violet's eye as he ducks into the air, foot on the top rung, and she snatches the remaining photograph from the glass without thought, without recognition, crumpling it into her bloody fist with savage protection.
They drop to the alley, Olaf's shoes further cracking the shattered glass. He sets her to her feet as the sky fills with black smoke.
"Come on." Olaf hisses. "Where's the damn car?"
Lemony Snicket drops to the ground with a grunt. His dark eyes find them both, the same desperate horror in his that Violet can feel on her face. Protective even in a self-made catastrophe, Olaf throws himself between them.
Broken glass and scraps of paper scatter about the alley. The velvet chair rests crippled and splintered on the ground behind Snicket, swells of cushion split in the drop outside. Violet takes these things in with sluggish emotional depth, as if her mind could only focus on survival instead of the panic rattling every bit of her.
Fierce with concern, Snicket's eyes roam her body, examining her clothes shredded and bloody at the knees, her face red and tearstained, her eyes wild and horrified in the midst of a living, growing tragedy.
"He didn't tell you about this did he, Violet?" Snicket demands, waving to the high stained glass windows. They flash with flame, the colors warped and tinted and steadily cracking. The fire has spread to the first floor. "Why would he mention his plans with Nero or his deal with Esmé? Or how they've been targeting noble families and sending their surviving orphans from Prufrock to Eliade? He wanted to end VFD. To destroy its lineage in one night. To burn them all."
"Wanted to." Olaf scoffs. He nods to the cathedral swamped with smoke, a hard, restrained flex to his jaw. "If you haven't noticed, the cathedral is burning."
"Not for long." Snicket promises, and a sick swell of hope soars in Violet's chest. "We've got noble volunteers in that theatre. Kit. Larry. They've handled worse before."
"The spores-" Violet starts, but Snicket cuts her off with a nod, says, "Are being handled by our newest volunteer as we speak. You may remember him from our most recent induction."
Olaf grins wickedly, shakes his head as if Snicket's efforts are wholly futile. "You think nobility means something. That it can save you. Inherited nobility won't save those orphans and it certainly didn't save you or anyone else."
"You planned this, Olaf?" Violet asks, the words so heavy and vile she can barely force them free. She eyes the brace of his back, hunched, prepared for a fight. At her voice, his hands twitch.
When he speaks it is through clenched teeth, clinging to composure. "Haven't you ever heard of a mercy killing?"
Then, softer, "Violet. You know what I went through at the hands of VFD. What you would have endured eventually."
"That's not fair, Olaf." Snicket says, bracing his own shoulders. Violet sees him eye Olaf's weak points, looking for an unprotected weakness, an opportunity to take him down. "Your experience was hardly-"
A car horn blares in warning, causing each one of them to flinch, and with a harsh scrape of tires on gravel, Olaf's car appears at the end of the alley through a sheen of smoke and speeds towards them. Three people round the corner behind it, bursting around the corner with impressive speed, and before Violet can get a good look at them straight, she knows it is the Quagmire triplets, would recognize Duncan and Isadora under any given circumstance, even calamity.
The car screeches to a halt beside Olaf. When the door is thrown open, she sees the Troupe tucked inside, the bald man at the wheel, the passenger seat empty.
"Let's go!" Fernald shouts. "Esmé's waiting at the safehouse!"
Olaf turns to her, an unspeakable question on his face.
Snicket takes this momentary distraction as his opening and lunges towards her. Violet shrieks, stumbles back, feeling the glass work deeper into her knees.
With a savage immediacy that shocks her, Olaf snatches the man's arm from the air, knuckles white, and flips his switchblade from his pocket. The blade glitters even in the murky air.
"Now now, Snicket." Olaf chides, a pleased, deranged grin to his face, as if amused that he had even tried to take her from him. "We mustn't touch what isn't ours."
"Yours." Snicket says bitterly, yanking his hand free. "As if you have any right to her. You're not her family. You're not-" Snicket stops. A slow, horrified look crosses his face, the kind of dread that can only follow a devastating realization.
Olaf backs away towards the car. He seems to recognize the look for what it is.
"Shut your mouth." He hisses, even as Snicket remains silent. "Shut your-"
"She doesn't know, does she? About Beatrice and Bertrand." Snicket says, revolted. "Her whole family. What you did to them."
Beside him, Isadora gasps, her eyes finding Violet's.
Sick realization, long-buried, rises in her like bile.
A slow ringing builds in her ears. As if from very far away she hears Olaf promise, "I'll kill you for that, Snicket." like a lengthy eventuality.
"He's an arsonist, Violet." Snicket shouts, adopting that same pleading tone he had used on the catwalk. "A thief, a cad, a murderer."
"I'm also in love with you." Olaf snaps, his eyes serious and grave. He holds out his hand, offering, as steady as the night they had stolen their dinner. She hears him then, so concerned over her loyalty, "I do not know how else to explain how much you gut me. I am distressingly devoted. To you, Violet Baudelaire. You."
Although the mention of her family has that wounded, always-aching grief in her splitting open, there is also a staggering flood of (wretched, guilty-) relief.
Violet remembers her first thought upon seeing Olaf, how she had wanted to offer herself at his feet, and thinks she must have known somewhere deep and secretive with shame that in order to love him she would have to sacrifice every bit of herself- morality, innocence, family.
She is unsurprised simply because she has learned through repetition that there is no way she could be plainly happy without consequences or entanglements or tragedy. As if cursed and still staggering, she is no stranger to misfortune.
She looks to Olaf's willing, open hand.
Tragedy falls at her feet, offers itself like a blessing, and she cannot turn it away.
"Don't." Isadora says, stern, demanding. "Violet, don't."
Already weeping, she lurches forward, stumbling on legs still barbed with glass, and takes his hand. Something breaks in her, some final shred of identity wholly irreparable, yet it feels like nothing in comparison to the warmth of Olaf's hand in hers, of his reverent and vindicated gaze.
He takes her into his arms, stumbles to the car.
They peel away in a flurry of gravel and glass, leaving Lemony Snicket and the Quagmire triplets behind in the stunned, gory aftermath.
"You knew, didn't you?" Olaf asks, quiet, even as his Troupe hollers with victory. "You knew I was the one starting the fires to kill off VFD. You knew the mushrooms were the Medusoid Mycelium. And you did it anyway."
"I don't know." Violet forces through sobs, her face in her hands gone grimey with congealed blood. "I don't know."
She remembers the night high up in the tower at Endtimes, hearing Esmé promise, "We'll take it from here."
"You killed my family." Violet forces through her throat wrecked with weeping. "You would have killed me."
Olaf's arms come up around her, cradling her as if she is precious and fragile.
"I didn't love you then." He murmurs, voice honest and wounded. He presses a forceful kiss to her hair. "I didn't know you."
If only to look away from the mess of ash dotting the windshield, Violet unfolds the photograph in her shaking fist, finding it bloodstained and ragged, yet her mother and father still grin with the same radiance and love as when Olaf had first given it to her. Disgusted, Violet tosses it to the floor, knowing she has utterly betrayed them.
Olaf holds her till her weeping runs dry. She slumps in his lap, her vision hazy and washed-out, diffused with the trembling fine-edged panic that signals trauma in the making.
Through the rearview mirror, Violet watches the growing plume of black smoke at their backs and remembers the night she had first taken Olaf's hand, wine-drunk, her heart in her hands, already impossibly in love.
She remembers him the next morning, gutted and awestruck, "You want to destroy VFD?" and feels such blistering amounts of stupidity and self-hatred that her stomach heaves, because even now she remembers that blessed, grateful tilt to his head, as if she were so precious he couldn't suffer it.
"I'm in love with you." Violet admits, frowning, shaking her head bitterly against his chest. Olaf holds her even tighter. She hears his heartbeat sputter and spike.
The smoke follows no matter how far they drive, climbing higher into the sky with every passing moment.
Olaf flinches when she touches his jaw, stares wide-eyed and waiting as if he expects her to strike him. Violet turns in his lap, her face still wrecked from tears, and kisses him so forcefully their teeth click. He melts against her, taking her face into his trembling hands, knowing, just as she does, that she has done this to herself, that Violet was always an eager and willing accomplice in the act of her own (lovely, desperate-) ruination.
"In the slaughterhouse of love, they kill only the best, none of the weak or deformed. Don't run away from this dying. Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat."
— Rumi
The poem Violet mentions that would have been her cue is "Unless You Let It In" by Barbara Johnson.
Olaf's line "Come and follow me," is loosely based on Matthew 4:19.
As always, thank you so much for allowing me a platform to purge my demons as I have. Thank you for your kind words and dedication and patience. Over the year and a half it has taken me to finish this work, I've always promised myself that my next project will be an original novel. This idea terrifies and excites me in extremes. Thank you for giving me the confidence to move forward in that respect, too.
Again, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Please let me know what you think.